


something else (to get me through this)

by MissSwing



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drug Abuse, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-11-30 19:23:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11470086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSwing/pseuds/MissSwing
Summary: A look into how different relationships would've developed post-Cooperative Calligraphy if Annie had relapsed and the writers had known how to handle addiction.





	1. trading late nights and sheep

**Author's Note:**

> starts in season 2, but diverges from canon from there
> 
> titles borrowed from various songs, might make a playlist as i go along
> 
> always looking for someone to beta!♥

The emergency bottle was, more than anything else, a test; it was a point to prove. She could make it through the hardest days without Adderal, without even opening the unused purse where she hid the bottle. There were also a few stray Ativan stolen from a bottle Britta had left in the study room. Annie couldn't believe Britta didn't notice they were gone; Annie kept track of every pill in her apartment down to how many were halved or even just chipped. She hadn't considered taking one until today; the disastrous "bottle episode" had left her bones buzzing, and wasn't that the frenetic energy that pushed people to take "downers"? She couldn't imagine another reason for slowing down your mind; she had succumb to addiction doing just the opposite.

Ultimately, she resisted the urge; she had survived finals, the Tranny Dance, and six conversations about discretion-all of which were humiliating in their own way-without relapsing. She checked into her sobriety app more; she went to movies with Abed and tried to unravel if what he had with Troy was too chaotic for her to find a place in it.Troy stared at her ass when he thought she wasn't looking, and at her breasts whenever he thought he could get away with it, but would he touch her if she asked?

Abed didn't stare, but sometimes he would cock his head at her smiles like he was filing away what had caused them. If she held his hand, would he let her? Jeff and Britta weren't the only ones who could keep a secret, but maybe they were the only ones who wanted to try. 

Abed assured her that Jeff and Britta were over, he would know, but he still shot her a look only she would recognize as sympathetic when Britta slid into her chair with a specific, vicious smile. Jeff's only tell was his silence; he would've taunted Britta's smug satisfaction mercilessly if he hadn't been unsure what his tone would give away.

The third time it happened, Abed and Annie were the last to leave, They sat on the couch, and Annie let her head rest on his shoulder.

"It's just mid-season drama," he reassured her. "This is all lead up to the finale of revelations. Spoiler alert: if anyone thinks they're endgame, they aren't watching the same show."

"Why are they the only ones worth watching?" Annie had stopped being annoyed being by his television framework, at least in private; she knew it was the best way to access his brand of wisdom.

"Their recklessness would be out of character for the rest of us. We all care about each other too much to take that risk. Maybe the people watching are more interested in them, but they're more  _invested_ in the rest of us." He almost pulled away when Annie threaded her fingers through his, but he settled into it when she squeezed his hand. "They root for the study group as a whole, and Jeff and Britta have become another obstacle for us to overcome. They're a threat to the group's dynamic. Another romantic subplot would change our whole genre, and love triangles aren't really in my wheelhouse."

She didn't ask if he meant Jeff and Britta or he and Troy, but his clear message was that she didn't belong in either. She hugged him goodbye, and walked home alone. It had been a big night at Dildopolis, and she only slept when she let herself swallow two Ativan with her usual melatonin. The combination made her heart heavy and her body weightless. She had a challenging paper to draft, but it could wait until the morning.

She overslept for the first time since the morning after Troy's birthday. She took an Adderal without overthinking it; it was just giving her morning back to her, and she didn't think it was relapse if she could so easily justify it.

A few days later, Britta was smiling and trying to hide a hickey. Jeff couldn't resit snarking about Britta running out of college boys and moving down to high schoolers, to which she shot back that maybe she's just spending too much time with someone who  _does_ make out with teenagers. No one even tried to hide their stares at Annie, who ignored them, pretending to look at her notes but really paying attention to the quiet shaking of pills in her purse when she shifted her weight.

The one she took in the bathroom was just to make up for time lost crying after everyone left.

Annie knew what addiction looked like, and this wasn't it. Weeks passed, and she didn't come close to doctor shopping or calling Starburns his real name to get on his good side. Not that she was dwelling on what any of it meant; she didn't stop moving long enough to think about how fast she was going until Jeff asked her to hang back after a particularly grueling diorama conflict.

"Everyone is worried about you," he said, all business, not even giving either of them the pleasure of a Winger speech.

"Everyone  _should_ be worried about that B minus diorama. Britta really Britta'd her model. Of  _herself._ "

"C'mon, I think Britta knows what she looks like."

"She's not the only one," Annie said, loud enough for Jeff to hear but quiet enough that he could pretend he didn't. 

"Shouldn't you be more concerned about Troy and Abed building themselves as Trobed?"

"Shouldn't you? That seems more important than whatever you think I'm doing to keep myself-and the rest of you-from Winger passable."

"Annie," he put his hand on her bare shoulder. "You know we care more about you than we do the grade."

"Yeah, well." She took a deep breath and shrugged him off. "Maybe they should've sent someone who sees that I don't."

"No one sent me. I noticed that, on your good days, you've been jumpier than Pierce on his bad days, and I think I know why."

"Is Britta's psychobabble rubbing off on you? I thought a professional phony would spot someone even worse at his own game."

"Objection: deflection." He smiled, his lawyer grin, and she remembered how it felt to punch him even more than how it felt to kiss him.

"Jeff, c'mon...grow up. I am, and one day I'll end up older than you are now, and then you'll be even more embarrassed to look at me."

"I've never been embarrassed-"

"I have homework to do, and I'm sure you do, too. Go work on the course load I don't carry."

She left the room first, and the pill she took in the cab home was for years lost to Jeff Winger

She stopped going to the study group, but still answered almost all their questions. She slept at apartment 303 when Dildopolis had events, but not enough for it to feel like home. She answered Britta's homework questions with links to Google Scholar and no commentary. She ended the semester with the best grades of her Greendale career, and barely cried when she realized she had no one to celebrate with her. Abed offered to throw her a party, but couldn't understand why not even Shirley was welcome. Annie couldn't tell him that the pity on her face would kill her, and definitely couldn't tell him how she would manage that pain.

The Adderal was barely a problem, but even barely was too much to say out loud.

 


	2. megaphone to my chest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie moves in with Troy and Abed.

She didn't hear from Jeff until late June.

_you're being a child, and you can't disney face your way out of this one. you're getting everything you wanted-we even found purple pens. let us know when you're done w your tantrum, abed won't let us choose an amusement park w/out you_

His text didn't have much that made her want to go, but it also didn't seem to leave room for her to stay home. She settled for a water park big enough for her to hide from Jeff's irritation, Britta's condescension, and Shirley's pity. She, Troy, and Abed mapped out a plan for the day, and it was the first time she could face the day with an excitement that came from nothing but herself. The thought of a few hours with Troy and Abed was appealing enough that she left her bottle at home; even if they rejected her as a partner, they would always love her as a friend.

She broached the subject with Troy while Abed cycled through the same three rides for the better part of an hour.

"I've been thinking a lot about how much time I spend at your place, and was just...just kinda wondering how you would feel about Troy and Abed and  _Annie_ in the morning." Her heart pounded like it would break her ribs, like Adderal and paintball and running through a glass door all at once.

"Is this about more than TV? Because a guest star, especially a hot one, could do wonders for our ratings, but Abed told me you held his hand? And he didn't hate it, but-"

"But it wasn't you," Annie finished. To her surprise, Troy shook his head.

"He just didn't...get it? He thinks you still like me." At this, Annie started to blush. " _Do_ you still like me?"

"Well I was doing some research on polyamory, and it just seems like I could hold both of your hands, without asking you to stop holding each other." She cringed, realizing she had admitted to  _researching_ their relationship.

"Annie, you're really wrinkling my brain right now. You want  _both_ of us?"

"I want someone who wants me as much as I want them," she said, barely above a whisper.

"Well if Jeff is anything to go by, you have all the things anyone could want."

Annie slapped his shoulder. "Let's leave Jeff out of this. His opinion is skewed by moralizing and pity and everything that shouldn't cloud your vision of me." She blushed deeper as she felt him staring at her, trying to see what Jeff might've missed.

"He got everything right, but he also got stuff wrong? He didn't say  _anything_ about your hair or your eyes or how shy your smile is when you aren't being obnoxious about proving a point."

She slapped his arm again, but it was playful. Her mind was stuck on what Jeff might have said, since he apparently skipped over all the G-rated parts. "No Jeff, okay? If you want this, I want it to be about us. And Abed."

"Oh Abed is in. He's worried about having to navigate  _two_ love triangles, even though he knows we kick Jeff and Britta's ass in every way, _and_ he knows we won't Britta this by trying to keep it a secret." His eyes were serious when he looked at Annie. "Right?"

"I've done the secrecy thing, and it ended badly for everyone. If I'm all in, I can put it all out there."

Abed stepped through the ride gate as Annie was finishing her sentence. His eyes were unreadable, but his "cool cool cool" said it all, or at least enough for now.

 

Annie's lease ran out the next month, and Troy and Abed enlisted everyone but Jeff to help with the move. Troy was convinced that he had a Disney face  _and_ that it would work, but Annie threatened not to make chocolate chip cookies for a month if he tried. Jeff and Britta weren't dating, the same way they hadn't been dating during the semester. Jeff sent Annie a halfhearted apology text that sounded uncomfortably familiar to his study room speech; if she analyzed it long enough, it boiled down to  _I have_ chemistry  _with everyone, but maybe I have more with Britta._ After all of it, the Annie of it all was dead and buried and eulogized by no one.

The move was stressful and her new part-time job waitressing was even more so. When she worked the day shift, she would come home to buttered noodles and an empty space between Troy and Abed, one of whom would sometimes put his arm around her if she looked close to tears. They hadn't revisited the poly talk, and Annie was consistently too tired to be the one to bring it up, but it was in the air between them. It would have gone unresolved completely if Pierce hadn't given Troy a bottle of scotch to celebrate "the beautiful bonds of color-blind friendship."

It burned going down, but soon none of them were cringing and all of them were laughing.

"He really said that? A color-blind friendship?" Annie laughed around her cocktail straw, which Troy and Abed had been teasing her about all evening. "Let me see the card." She cleared her throat and, in her best Pierce impression, read, "To Troy, the son Gilbert could have had. You're my second favorite. Regards, Old White Man Says."

They fell into laughter and more drinking before Annie spoke again.

"I know it's embarrassing, but I get kind of...emotional about being someone's favorite."

"Of course you do. It's part of your archetype to-"

Troy shot Abed a look. "Abed! No TV tonight!"

Annie rolled her eyes. "I'm not a guest anymore, you can do TV every night!" She finished her drink with a cough. "This is my home, and in my home, we do TV every night!"

"Is TV every night a good thing, or are you gonna start crying? Because I'm out of chocolate, and also you were supposed to balance us out? That's what Britta-"

"Britta...has her strengths. But she's wrong about a lot of things." Annie cringed at how much she sounded like Jeff. You were supposed to sound like the five people you spent the most time with, and she hadn't seen him in over a month.

"Will you still tell me if I have an infection, or if it's fun blue stuff or mold blue stuff?"

Even drunk, Annie could see where this was headed. Abed had gone to the bathroom after Troy scolded him and, not for the first time, she wished he could be here to explain that there was a difference between unconventional worldviews and living in squalor, because she knew she wouldn't get anywhere. She shifted closer to him, only thinking about ways to avoid talking about responsibilities and definitely not about how soft his mouth would be.

"I will _always_ tell you about blue stuff."

It was nothing as far as romantic preludes went (it certainly wasn't _I'm glad you're staying_ , not that she was thinking about it), but Troy didn't seem to mind. She leaned in and gently pressed her lips to his. He kissed her back with gentle intensity she didn't think she had ever felt. His hand was soft under her ponytail, and she wondered how it would feel sober.

"Please don't have sex on our couch." Abed's monotone cut through the moment.

"Abed, no one is having sex tonight," Annie said. Troy looked unconvinced, but he also looked like he was about to fall asleep.

Abed slipped into his room without further comment. Annie pulled a pillow over her head and, muffled, asked Troy if he wanted to sleep in her bed. She almost panicked when he didn't answer, but went quietly into her room when she realized he was already asleep. 


	3. when we had some time alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short one, mainly because I'm just getting back into the headspace of writing these characters. The next chapter will be longer, with more Big Stuff happening.

Annie didn’t think she had ever been as happy as she was that August; life in 303 didn’t leave room for panic attacks about the upcoming semester or obsessive late nights talking to Abed about what it would be like to see Jeff after a summer almost separate from him. She knew that what she was growing into with Troy and Abed meant more than her old crush on Jeff, and that that wouldn’t be the problem when she saw him; she just didn’t want to hear his snide remarks about the wunderkinds reinventing love and then Britta’s predictable rebuttal. She didn’t want to hear those two talk about the rest of them like they were children.

She also didn’t want to yell at Pierce for prying into details about their intimate lives, but she knew she could leave that to Troy if she asked nicely enough. The thought of him picturing any of them…intimately…was repulsive, obviously, but she also didn’t know what she could say if she was willing to talk about it. There had been a shift since she and Troy had first kissed, and then more of a shift the first time she saw him and Abed kiss. Abed had made sure his first kiss with Annie was cinematic, for both of their sensibilities; he had pulled her out onto the fire escape under the guise of “that safety stuff you’re good at”, and had kissed her like every romantic comedy ever, only better.

This was real. This was hers, even if she didn’t know what to call it.

They were taking biology this semester; Troy had spent the entire morning trying to make it into an innuendo.

“Troy, those only work with chemistry. Biology just isn’t sexy,” Annie explained as she straightened the last section of her hair. There. Done and ready.

“What about anatomy? I definitely saw anatomy in the index.” He grinned. “I also saw anatomy last night, if you—”

“Troy!” Annie squeaked, as Abed said nice and high-fived him above her head. She rolled her eyes dramatically. “And anyway, I didn’t even have my lights on. You didn’t see anything.”  
She and Troy were definitely moving faster than she was with Abed, but they still hadn’t had sex. Annie wasn’t the prude that everyone had teased freshman year, but she was still more reserved than Britta encouraged her to be. Troy had seen her naked three times, two of which had been in his room with her on top of him, but he was always wearing boxers or more. She couldn’t tell if she was afraid of what Abed would think or if she was just afraid of sex, but something was keeping her from fully letting go. It definitely wasn’t that she didn’t want to; unlike her fantasies of Jeff, she could picture how it actually felt with Troy, and she had spent more than a few solo nights filling in the rest.

Against Annie’s better judgment, they hadn’t discussed what they would say to the others. Abed had “run the numbers” and decided that, despite the unconventional nature of a triad, they had the chemistry to make the audience root for them, but that the rest of the group would be horrified, invasive, supportive to the point of it being performative, and jealous. That hadn’t reassured her, but Troy promised it wouldn’t be as bad as Abed made it sound; then Abed had gone to bed, Troy had kissed her, and everything else dissolved.

They were their normal selves on the drive over. Annie secretly hoped the stress would make them better passengers, but she found herself complaining about _you guys, I am trying to drive!_ as much as any other day. They practically jumped out of the car and skipped toward the building after Annie told them she would catch up, that she had to find something in the glove compartment. She waited for them to be inside before she shook a single pill into her palm.

Someone in rehab had told her real love was better than any drug and, even though that had been true so far, Annie didn’t know how that would hold up against the big reveal. _I have to be strong today. Stronger than Pierce’s grossness and Shirley’s judgment and Britta’s…everything…and Jeff’s…_

She dry-swallowed the pill, and let the rest of that thought go down with it.


End file.
